Givenchy Face Jewelry for Fashion Week

Thursday, June 23, 2016 By Roger Sanchez

Call it punk-infused, call it India-inspired, call it futuristic goth, but whatever you call it, the bejeweled faces on Riccardo Tisci’s 2015 Fall runway is now high fashion. The creative director dubbed “Victorian Cholas” as the theme of the show, and with stunning kiss curls, sheer and flowing fabric, festooned corsets, and velvet mantles, the look was strikingly dark and romantic. With all of these teeming elements, however, the face mask jewelry had the room abuzz and stole the show.

The elaborate, often heavy pieces consisted mainly of ruby studs, dangling pearls, and ornate door knocker septum rings. Some models donned complete masks of face jewels, gems which lined all features of the face, often leaving only a few glimpses of skin revealed. Paired with stylized kiss curls and sheer, makeup-free faces, the exquisite gem arrangements made a striking contrast and a view of otherworldly beauty like never before imagined.

This elaborate face art reportedly took six hours to arrange and adhere. That, along with the fact that you’ll likely meet many quizzical looks when wearing these on the streets, means that perhaps we are only on the cusp of what face jewelry for the everyday fashionista looks like.

While the shock-factor of these pieces was an intended consequence of this show, the fact that high fashion is not only acknowledging, but embracing and acting on this trend, is indicative that face jewels are going to remain on the fashion circuit for quite some time.

While most of us have been slowly introduced to subtle face jewelry in Western fashion for the past few decades, it’s never quite looked like this. What do you think of this daring new look? Would you face the world armed with these heavy face jewels?